


The Briseid

by lesbiAndi



Category: The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Attempted Sexual Assault, Attempted murder by magical snake, F/F, Falling in love on a boat, Grief, I had fun including a bunch of different goddesses and only two gods who only speak and aren’t seen, M/M, Self-Discovery, ancient lesbians - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 01:53:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16944750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbiAndi/pseuds/lesbiAndi
Summary: "Loneliness- Sing, O Muse, of that lonely daughter of Lyrnessus, taken from her land and home by warriors’ hands to the fields of Troy, fated to travel across land and ocean in search of a home. Bright-eyed Briseis who courage transformed into a creature as formidable as she was kind, strong enough to challenge the gods."------------------------------------Despite being central to the conflict in The Iliad, Briseis kind of drops completely out of the Epic Cycle after the war is over?? Well, this is her odyssey. (Originally a final paper for my Epic Tradition class)





	The Briseid

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on realism: I have no idea how long it would take to sail from Italy to Egypt in those days, or how to make an antidote to venom. The only OCs are Isesnefret and Caecilia, but those are real Ancient Egyptian and Roman names respectively. I made up Briseis's and the Egyptians' epithets, but the rest are all from Homer and Virgil. And I know I kind of toned down Achilles's issues but he's not the focus and idk maybe she's an unreliable narrator? Odysseus much? lol

Loneliness- Sing, O Muse, of that lonely daughter of Lyrnessus, taken from her land and home by warriors’ hands to the fields of Troy, fated to travel across land and ocean in search of a home. Bright-eyed Briseis who courage transformed into a creature as formidable as she was kind, strong enough to challenge the gods. Start, Muse, when the wanderer alighted in southern Latium, in the land of the Volsci. Camilla, that maiden warrior of old, found her there asleep in a bed of laurel leaves. She touched Briseis, who awoke with a start but said nothing. “It is just as in my dream!” Camilla proclaimed, “The gods sent me a vision that I walked on this beach, and on it found a woman in the image of Artemis with the face of grey-eyed Athena. I am Camilla- come, tell me, who are you?” Briseis gave a guarded smile, replying “Is it not the custom amongst your people, too, to make conversation over a meal?” The huntress returned the smile. “Ah, yes, custom. Let it not be said I neglected my duties as host. Come, my warriors will lead you to a bathing inlet while I see there is a feast fit for you.” Briseis did as directed, sinking into the water’s cold embrace, closing her eyes to the world. Invisible, silver-footed Thetis rose from the water’s depths and brushed her hands through the fair-cheeked mortal’s hair as would a mother- as she had done to the flame-colored locks of her son Achilles and grandson Neoptolemus, both gone now- and made her curls beautiful as bunches of grapes. Shining Briseis rose from the water, appearing to her new companions to be god-like. 

The women took their guest to an encampment on the rocky coastline, shaded by the trees from the setting sun. Upon their arrival, Camilla bid Caecilia, amongst them most blessed with a love of music, play her lute and sing. The Volsci maidens made idle conversation as they and Briseis began devouring the tart wine and freshly-killed veal before them, congratulating each other on the hunt that had procured them this feast, waiting patiently for Briseis to explain herself. She smiled as she ate, but her eyes betrayed no emotion held within, as though she were the cunning Odysseus cloaked in a disguise. But when Caecilia began a song of swift-footed Achilles and peerless Patroclus, dearest friends and warriors who were denied their voyage home, the bright eyes of Briseis shone brighter with a sheen of tears. Her heart filled with sorrow. These people knew Achilles and Patroclus only as stories- to her they were men that she had known, loved, and lost. Observing her tears, Camilla bid the bard stop, and gently asked once again, “Maiden, emergent from the sea shore, who are you?”. Briseis met her eyes and finally told her story, “My name is Briseis, daughter of Briseus, born in Lyrnessus that lies so far from here. There I was made the wife of King Mynes- but it was not long before that great war between the Trojans and the Greeks reached our city. They killed my family and weeping tore me from the only home I ever knew. Outside the impenetrable walls of Troy, a man came and told me that his commander Achilles had led the assault, and I was to be taken to him as a prize. I let out a cry of rage and grief, declaring I would rather die than be a slave to the one who slaughtered my family. The gentle man just listened and replied that neither of them had wanted to raid my city unprovoked and he was truly sorry. I still do not know if he lied, but his eyes seemed to tell the truth, and I let out another cry- for, without the rage of grief, I was left only with the crushing loneliness in a land of aliens. The man pulled me to him and said his name was Patroclus, and he too had once been alone and afraid- a mere boy abandoned in the court of King Peleus, stripped of honor for a deadly accident over a game of dice. There, the prince Achilles, some few years his junior, had accepted him with open arms. I still was weary, for as his property I would be expected to lay in his bed, and while I had accepted it with the king for my family’s sake to do so with any man filled me with revulsion. That he also assured me of- as Gilgamesh had refused even the divine Ishtar after finding his match in Enkidu, Achilles would not ask of me that which I was loathe to give. So I gave him my hand, and great-hearted Patroclus promised I would never be alone.” Bitter tears welled up with passion once more in the wanderer’s eyes. “But Patroclus lied. When he took me to that cruel lord of men Agamemnon’s tent, I accepted that the tenuous peace I had found with the Myrmidons was at an end. The son of Atreus pushed me down and tried three times to mount me, but each time silver-footed Thetis pushed him back. Eventually, he fled in frustration and Thetis removed the mist from my eyes. She explained that she had once been taken by a man against her will- Peleus, instructed by the gods to bind and attack her to unwittingly circumvent a prophecy. For this she vowed to not let the same happen to any others within her reach. O, Thetis! Iron-strong heart of the ocean! Would that you could have saved your son as well. I lit the pyre for Patroclus, and Achilles too. I prepared his body myself and poured his mortal ashes in a golden urn where they mixed with those of the son of Menoitius. As I did so, that black-eyed goddess Thetis again appeared to me, and warned me that should I stay a moment longer I would be claimed by one or another of the Achaeans. I had the choice to live a captive, slave to strangers’ desires, or risk death alone, claiming my independence. I chose the latter. 

So the Nereid shrouded me in divine mist; and I fled, running through the chaotic bloody sea of men unseen, feet taking me in the direction of what had been home. For three days I ran. On the fourth day at sunset, my callused feet finally touched Lyrnessus. But it was not as I remembered. The city walls had crumbled where that bulwark Ajax hit them, and dust had settled over wilted garden beds. Empty baskets lay scattered in the streets, raided of their goods, and doors creaked open and shut in the wind. I comforted myself that some of my people had survived to bury the dead before they fled the city- yet still, I was completely alone in the once-bustling city I grew up in. As I entered the central courtyard I caught my breath- for there lay blackened, rotting funerary pyres, an urn beside each one- etched with the names of my former husband, my parents, and each of my brothers. Cold grief seized me- but I did not fall upon the ground and rub the scorched earth on my face, as one in the throes of mourning should. I ran. Back through the ruined streets and deep into the forest, I did not stop until my feet failed me and catapulted me face-first into a laurel tree. There in the soft grass I finally let loose my sorrow.

Daphne, she who had been the purest and most beautiful of the naiads, transformed by her father the river-god Ladon into a laurel to protect her from the unwanted lust of Apollo, heard my tears through that sacred tree. She brought the veil of sleep upon me, and while I slept her nymphs carried me at magical speeds around the great Aegean coastline to the banks of the river Ladon in Arcadia. When I awoke, I cowered in fear. Her voice assured me I was safe- this was a sanctuary, free from harm. A pile of berries lay beside my head, but I was wary and did not eat them. So many beautiful trees and flowers grew around her trunk, the autumn ivy and the spring larkspur both in blossom, even common herbs imbued with wildness. I marveled at the untamed diversity of flora and asked my host from whence they came. She told me to eat first, then she would explain - but in my ear I heard a voice, “Do not eat the food that Daphne offers. I am Hermes, guardian of travelers, and this is not where your journey is fated to end”. So as I brought the berries to my lips I crushed each one between my fingers, staining them black as night. Then did Daphne tell me the truth- each plant around her was a poor endangered soul who either had sought her counsel, or who she had plucked from hardship, like myself. Merciful Daphne transformed them out of love, like her father did for her. Tears tinged her voice. On instinct I reached out, revealing my stained hands. She cut off my apologies but still begged me to stay in the wilderness with my “brothers and sisters”- she almost lured me in; but in my heart I knew that to give up one’s own body and voice, even when surrounded by others, is to be truly isolated. So Daphne bade me go, first taking one of her branches to fashion into a bow to defend myself from cruelty. Laurel wood in hand, I traversed the woods for weeks alone in search of people- but to no avail. I was alone again.

One day I unwittingly walked into Artemis’s favorite hunting ground, and used the bow of Daphne to kill a deer the archer-goddess had marked herself. The goddess of the golden distaff flew at me in rage, but seeing the fine tool decided to make me her apprentice. For three cycles of the moon, I travelled by her side- but I again began to feel the pain of loneliness, the emptiness without human contact. One cannot casually touch a god. Artemis, too, believes abstinence in all things is the only way to become pure and stronge- to purge oneself not just of desire but of empathy and attachment. I tried at first to purge from my mind the memories of grief weighing on it, to forget the love I had for my parents, to embrace an antiseptic oneness with the universe. But suppression did not heal the grief. It merely festered untended. And refusing to feel at all felt like slowly killing half of my soul. Without new love there is no fresh loss, but the human need to be love cannot be willed away but eats away at you inside. On the fourth new moon I told fair-cheeked Artemis, ‘I must be among people.’ But the goddess did not want to let me go. I begged for a compromise- to let an oracle divine my fate. She consented, and it told us this- I would have to cross the ocean to find belonging, to find someone I would give my heart up for. Resigned, the hunter-goddess agreed to let me go. She gave me a magnificent shield, adorned with famous nostois, and told me to find a warrior maiden devotee of hers in Latium- she would find me a ship. She would aid my journey.”

With that Briseis finally ended her story, looking up at the faces gathered around. The Volsci were moved by her plight, Camilla in particular. She declared, “Of course it is as Artemis decrees! I know of a ship, the Epicheîrisi, leaving tomorrow for distant Egypt, that land of many medicines. Perhaps there you will find the home you seek.” They all went to bed for the night, and in the morning when they rose Camilla took Briseis to a port. The strong-armed warrior gave her gold coins for fare and the belt of armor of her own waist- honored, Briseis told her, “I will not forget you, but will sing your praises for all my days”.

On the boat, the bright-eyed wanderer joined the company of a salt-scarred captain and one other passenger- Isesnefret, daughter of the goddess Isis, with amber eyes and long black hair that gleamed in the sun. Briseis was struck dumb by her beauty on sight. Luckily, black-haired Isesnefret approached her first- she was amazed by light-footed Briseis’s bow and shield, and offered to trade lessons in herbology arts for lessons in combat. Over the course of their time on the sea, the two grew close over long hours of shooting arrows into the mast and mixing sundry poultices. The smile that had been so long gone from Briseis’s eyes returned, like industrious Penelope when her husband finally returned to her, and Isesnefret’s laughter graced the air that had so sorely missed it. She had also been to Troy- after that terrible war ended, wading through the wreckage of the once-great city of Ilium, looking for survivors amongst the abandoned bodies. The maiden of the healing arts believed the images of the half-dead would never fade from her mind’s eye, but with bow-callused hands to rock her awake from the nightmares and soothe her back to sleep again the prospect seemed less sour. Briseis’s sleep, too, was troubled by images of the dying- many nights she woke herself with a silent scream, and watched her companion’s chest rise and fall with the waves to steady her own breathing.

All this under the all-seeing eyes of their captain, in truth the goddess Ma’at in disguise. Ma’at, overseer of the world, arbiter of truth and justice! Isis, queen amongst the gods, had asked Ma’at to watch over her daughter on her voyage. When the goddess of many forms heard her daughter was in love with a mortal foreigner, she grew enraged. That mistress of magic Isis conjured up a snake, instructing Ma’at to release it on the day their ship made landfall. It would follow the lovers until they were alone, then bite Briseis where she stood. But the lioness goddess Sekhmet, enraged that some in Egypt considered Isis to be a more powerful healer than herself, overheard this plan and conspired to wait at the docks and enchant the snake to bite another target. And lo, so it happened- on making landfall, Isesnefret pulled Briseis away from city streets to a small cave. The black-haired healer declared her love, and in that moment Briseis froze. Was this the belonging the oracle spoke of? Could she be vulnerable, “give up her heart” to someone who might die with it? Despite what she had told Artemis, could she even love someone again with all her scars? In that frozen moment, the enchanted serpent leapt out from behind a rock and delivered its lethal poison. Lovely Isesnefret collapsed in Briseis’s arms. Crying in agony, the wanderer from Lyrnessus laid the other woman’s limp body on the ground, and in one swift motion pierced an arrow through the serpent’s head. Desperately, with shaking hands, she recalled what Isesnefret had taught her and mixed an antidote; and, with the poultice on the puncture wound, the prone woman began to breathe again- but her consciousness remained trapped beneath the earth. Having heard Briseis’s cry, Isis emerged from outside the cave to be greeted with the sight of her only daughter insensate on the ground. The great goddess collapsed atop the girl’s listless body, like she had upon the corpse of her husband Osiris in time gone by, and her grief once more made the sun stand still in the sky. Briseis turned to yell at the goddess, but the words died in her throat. In the tableau of a mother clutching at her daughter and staining her with her tears, she could only see her own mother’s face. Clasping the weeping woman’s shoulder, she turned her around and through clenched teeth whispered “What do I do.”

Like Orpheus before her to reclaim his beloved Eurydice, Briseis walked into the mouth of Hell, bow in one hand and shield in the other. A room appeared before her- and there was Ma’at, once more transformed into her divine form, holding a set of golden scales. Beside her stood the ghostly form of Isesnefret. Three times Briseis tried to embrace her, but her hands slipped right through the spirit whose pale eyes were as blank as the dead who drink from the river Lethe. A voice echoed through the chamber, “I am Anubis, Ruler of the Underworld. If you seek to free this soul, you may do so- but in exchange you must put your own eternal soul on the line. Place your heart on the left scale, and Ma’at will judge wether or not it is pure. If so, I will spare you both. If not…” Lovely Briseis balked, seeing the oracle’s words flipped on her, and a million images streamed through her mind. “Well?” the dog-headed god asked. “No.” Bright-eyed Briseis spoke that small, powerful word softly, and it fell as heavy as a boulder in the gilded room. Anubis’s eyes bulged ferociously out of his skull. Again, the archer princess, wanderer of the Mediterranean, uttered that word, “No. I am through being the pawn of the gods. At every step in this long journey, from Lyrnessus to this chamber, I have obeyed the winds of fate. Even when I denied Daphne and Artemis, I followed the path they laid out for me. No more. I refuse to play your game.” With those words, her body vibrated with a strange magic, and she was able to grab Isesnefret by the hand and sprinting pull her back up the way she came, never once looking back at the pounding footsteps following them. Arriving back in the cave, Isis the resurrector cradled the spirit in her arms and placed it back into its body. The black-haired beauty’s eyes opened on the sight of two pairs of eyes gazing into hers- her mother’s gold eyes filled with relief, and bright grey eyes shining with love. Like Odysseus returning to Penelope after 20 long years, like Baccus finding Ariadne, Briseis enfolded Isesnefret in her arms as sun began to cross the horizon once more, and Eos streaked the sky with a new dawn over Egypt.

**Author's Note:**

> You can probably tell I started off in a really Homeric voice but those last few pages I slipped into my fanfic voice and had to edit it lmaoooo also I'm still running on 0 hours of sleep


End file.
